


The engine that puts stories out

by MundaneChampagne



Category: Clocktaur War Series - T. Kingfisher
Genre: Drowning, Exorcisms, Ficlet Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 06:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18493687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MundaneChampagne/pseuds/MundaneChampagne
Summary: Character study ficlets.





	The engine that puts stories out

**Author's Note:**

> So I reread this series lately. :) And it made me want to write a little.
> 
> To be updated as stories do or do not happen!

The demon was bound. Its host stared up at him.

"There are two options," Caliban said to him.

 

No options for him.

Just the water. Just the slow death. To be made an example of.

 

"The sword."

The man with the demon swallowed, throat bobbing.

"Or the exorcism."

"That one."

"It's not nice," the other paladin warned.

"Don't care." The man closed his eyes. "I want to be free."

 

The priests around him like executioners. Which in a way, they were. He thrashed, the demon in control of his body screaming, in his head or maybe out loud, he's not sure.

 _I want to be free_.

Even if he lived through this, he won't be free afterward.

 

They were far away from the Temple. The autumn foliage reflected in the mill pond.

They grabbed the victim by his collar, and submerged him.

_1…2…3…_

Count to 100. Haul the possessed man out again. Give him a thump on the back to see if he would exhale the water and live.

Not water out of his mouth, but the demon screaming.

 

 _Push him back in_. The demon still screamed, bubbles coming out of his mouth as it screamed and screamed and screamed, longer than any human should ever be able to scream. His legs kicked, arms flailed, with a strength that wasn't his own.

 _He remembered_. Every moment. When it jumped to him in his weak-willed triumph, when it raised his sword and brought it down on another human—unprocessed, _him_ the possessed one this time—

The bubbles finally stopped, and he inhaled, water filling the hole that his god had left behind.

 

They finally pulled the victim back out of the pond again. He was eerily still, his face pale and his mouth open, some water spilling out.

Caliban reached out with his God's power, looking for the demon. It was there, all right, bumping up against the immovable walls of dead flesh, clawing, looking for something to grasp, to pull—

He and the other paladin begin chanting, binding the demon to its victim's death.

Then the demon is gone, and they try to revive the man.

 

It doesn't work. He wasn't sure if it was air or water on his face, but it was cold, very cold, seeping into his skin and burning his brain and flesh with the cold—

He said words. He didn't know what they were, but later they told him that he begged for the sword.

Caliban can believe it.

 

The man did not live.

His eyes stared at nothing, at the clear autumn sky, as the paladins wrapped him in a shroud and delivered the bad news.

The ripples in the mill pond stilled.

And everything was quiet again.

 

Quiet, he too had gone quiet. And the demon. Stopped clawing at his mind, stopped shredding his thoughts.

Was this death? The end?

 

This time it works.

The woman spat out water and lifted her head, her eyes clear but tired, her face aged beyond her years, thanks to the pull of the demon.

She died, and the demon went with her, and they brought her back.

She was quiet too, the whole way back, when they delivered her to the care of the Temple.

Caliban slept well that night.

 

He couldn't sleep now.

 

Pulled up to the surface, the faces of the priests distorting through the motion of the water, like opening the door and stepping out into the sun, eyes blinded and watering.

 

_I did this I did this I did this._

_It is not your fault. You cannot be blamed for what the demon made you do._

_But not for him, this time it_ was _his fault, his weak will, his arrogance. And he'd paid for it, watched through his eyes while the demon used his body to cut down the members of the Temple._

_My fault my fault._

He sunk back under.

 

Back down, underwater, into the darkness, with nothing but a burn in his throat and horror in his mind.

 

Later, he thought, sitting in the prison cell, that it was probably a good thing that he didn't feel up to washing his face.

 

Never to face the water again. If they'd even let him have a bucket of it. Which they didn't.

 

The demon corpse chittered quietly in the back of his mind.


End file.
